Announcing the Fellows’ Plenary Panel – Pushing Forward: With or Without Evaluation by Natalie Kishchuk

The Fellowship of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) is made up of individuals who have been recognized by CES for their lifetime achievements, service and prominence in evaluation. Since its inception in 2003, 23 individuals have received the CES Fellowship. One of the Fellowship’s roles is to provide leadership and collective experience, including at CES national conferences. Starting in 2015, the Fellows began organizing a special strand within the conference, bringing together recognized leaders to address timely and often controversial issues in the field of evaluation.

We are delighted to announce this year’s Fellows Plenary Panel, to be held on Tuesday May 2nd, 2017. We believe it will deliver a critical, edgy perspective, and stimulate dialogue at the conference and beyond.

Specifically, the conference theme “Facing Forward: Innovation, Action, and Reflection” presumes evaluation has a role in addressing contemporary challenges. This session will make us ask ourselves a question we might not rather face: What if it doesn’t? What if evaluation is a nuisance or hindrance, or worse yet, irrelevant to pushing change forward? Or worse still, an accomplice to outdated, ill-thought or socially retrogressive policiesand programs?

We are honoured to have three leading agents of social and environmental change, working outside the parameters of formal evaluation, share their experiences with evaluation and their views on its role in Pushing Forward. Panellists are Aaron Good, Vice President, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation (Heading the Innoweave Initiative); Nick Falvo, PhD, Director, Research and Data, Calgary Homeless Foundation, and Mark Valentine, ReframeIt Consulting (San Francisco) and Ecotrust. Penny Hawkins, former Head of Evaluation at the UK Department for International Development (DFID) will act as Discussant/Moderator.

@StrongRoots_SK @Broadleafc I can't believe it's been 10 episodes of @evalcafe already! Also, we just confirmed that we're going to be recording a session at @CES_SCE_c2018. Fitting, since this whole thing got kicked off at #EvalC17! Follow @evalcafe for more details as they come. ;)